WORLD

Sunday's operation was carried out by the Saudi navy, which for more than a week has dispatched its fleet to Sudan to help evacuate thousands of civilians from all over the world.

Russian forces, which have struggled for months to capture Bakhmut, are slowly taking over more and more of the city.

Video clips shared by local media show fans facing off with security guards as they try to force their way into the venue even after its gates had been shut.

The team leader gave instructions to the 30 or so diggers: "You have to dig from there to there," he said, pointing to a few dozen metres of green grass damp from the night's rain.

The armed wing of the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas said on Thursday it would stop receiving fundraising via the crypto currency bitcoin, a method it has used for years, citing an increase in "hostile" activity against donors.

The announcement pushes one of Turkey's largest voting blocs behind opposition candidate Kemal Kilicdaroglu and further complicates Erdogan's path to a third decade of rule.

Black clouds rose over the capital Khartoum as foreign nations scrambled to organise mass evacuations of their citizens, with Turkey's defence ministry on Friday reporting one of their military transport aircraft had come under fire.

The resolution, passed unanimously by all 15 Council members on Thursday, said a ban on women working for the world body and NGOs in Afghanistan "undermines human rights and humanitarian principles".

The 69-year-old leader cleared his busy schedule of public appearances after getting sick live on TV on Tuesday night.

BBC Chairman Richard Sharp resigned on Friday after an independent report found he had breached public appointment rules by not disclosing potential conflict of interest in his role in securing a $1 million loan for the then-prime minister, Boris Johnson.

In persisting ceasefire violations that the United States called worrying, heavy gunfire and detonations rattled residential neighbourhoods of the capital region where fighting has been concentrated over the past week.

The violence comes after Pakistan declared a new offensive against militants following a resurgence of attacks in recent months, such as a February mosque bombing that killed more than 100.

Russian forces pounded Ukrainian cities with missiles as people slept on Friday, killing at least nine people in their first large-scale air strikes in nearly two months.

Samer said Lebanon's army intelligence raided his brother's apartment in a Beirut suburb last week, detaining him, his wife and children and deporting them to Syria.

The one-hour conversation between Xi Jinping and Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday was the first since Russia invaded its pro-Western neighbour more than a year ago.

Hundreds have died and tens of thousands fled for their lives in two weeks of conflict between the army and rival Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

The US Navy demanded the immediate release of the Marshall Islands-flagged tanker, saying it was transiting international waters in the Gulf of Oman and slamming Iran's "continued harassment of vessels".

In the past day alone, data showed that more cross-border transactions with China were settled in yuan in March than in dollars for the first time, and that Argentina said it aims to regularly pay for Chinese goods in yuan and not dollars.

More than 16,000 Ukrainian children have been deported to Russia since the February 2022 invasion, according to Kyiv, with many allegedly placed in institutions and foster homes.

Iran says its nuclear program is for civilian purposes while the United States suspects Tehran wants to develop a nuclear bomb by enriching uranium.

The "Friends of the Tree" group works to raise awareness about green areas around the capital Tripoli that are quickly disappearing because of drought, human activity and desertification.

Israelis remain polarised over the planned legislation that proponents say would restore balance to Israeli authorities and critics say removes checks on those in power.

The US is "showing that one cannot engage in this sort of awful behavior of using human beings as pawns, as bargaining chips, without paying consequences," said a senior US official.

Ukrainian Ambassador Sergiy Kyslytsya said there may be no other country in the world where citizens pay such heed to debates at the UN General Assembly or Security Council about their nation.

Thousands of Ukrainian troops have been training in the West to use different military assets on the battlefield in a combined way ahead of a counteroffensive Ukrainian officials say will come when its forces are ready.

Erdogan is also expected to speak with Russian President Vladimir Putin as he attempts to project health and vigour at one the more vulnerable moments of his two-decade rule.

Ukraine's Foreign Ministry condemned Russia's occupation of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station in southeastern Ukraine, Europe's largest, and demanded it leave the plant.

"The aim of the decree is to create a compensation fund for the possible adoption of retaliatory measures against the illegal expropriation of Russian assets abroad," he said.

The governor of Mazandaran, Mahmoud Hosseinipour, said the attacker was a local security officer of the bank.